Introducing Mac

Mac Bohonnon left home at the age of thirteen to pursue his dream of one day competing in the Winter Olympics as a Freestyle Aerialist. For the past three years, he has been the youngest athlete, living and training full time with the U.S. Ski Team’s Elite Aerial Program at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Lake Placid, New York. Mac fulfills his high school education requirements via an online program to accommodate his rigorous training and international competition schedule. He spends seven hours a day building his strength and working to perfect his twisting and flipping skills through a series of focused progressions performed on water ramps, trampoline and eventually snow. This past March, after overcoming growth issues that threatened his jumping career, Mac (now 16) received a perfect score while competing at the 2011 USSA Marriott Junior Championship: Freestyle Junior Nationals in Steamboat Springs, Colorado – getting him one step closer to fulfilling his Olympic dream.

Having lived on his own from such an early age, Mac says his life in sports has helped him to become a self-sufficient teen and focused elite athlete. Over the years, and with the help of US Ski team coaches Dmitry Kavunov, Eric Bergoust and Jarislov Novak, his teammate Aerialist Ryan St. Onge and his friend and mentor 2010 Olympic bobsledder and World Push Champion Steve Langton, Mac has developed useable strategies for goal-setting, perseverance; juggling school and sport. He hopes to inspire and share his thoughts with his contemporaries. Mac is also interested in igniting a dialogue with the parents of young athletes. He believes he can help them to better understand the stress of competition and juggling sports and life.